6 weeks in and still hungry – help!

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Hello all – I’ve been following the forums for a few weeks now and appreciating all the advice and inspiration – thanks! I would really appreciate some advice from the collective wisdom. I am 6 weeks into the 8 week Fast800 but still struggling a lot with hunger. Not cravings, but stomach gnawing, getting cranky, wobbly-at-times hunger. I try to deal with it during the day by drinking warm water or herbal tea (it’s winter here now) or sometimes a carb-free electrolyte drink. But I often have several wakenings at night (toilet, tending to young children, and because it seems this diet is making my sleep worse). I often really struggle to get back to sleep due to hunger and usually need to have a snack – a teaspoon of almond butter is my go-to as it’s quick and seems to do the trick.

I’m not diabetic but have an autoimmune condition that affects my joints and feet and contributed to weight gain. I was on a keto diet (i.e. less than 20g carbs/day) for a few months last year, but after a while it affected my digestion and made my autoimmune symptoms worse. Testing of my gut biome revealed I had decimated my gut flora… and that I have a prevalence of a species that contributes to inflammation if I eat too much fat.

So I’m keeping my net carbs at 30-50 g a day to allow for more variety in fibre to support my gut health; protein at around 60-65g, and the rest fat. I usually hit just over 1000 cal/day, mostly due to needing the snack overnight. I eat more of my calories later in the day to try to help with the overnight hunger, but this often leaves me hungry and cranky in the morning.

I’ve lost 6kg in 6 weeks, but 3.5 kg of that was in the first 2 weeks. At this rate, I’ll need to do at least another round of 8 weeks to get to my goal weight/waist circumference, but I am really struggling to see how I’ll manage that with the ongoing hunger. If you’ve read all the way through, thanks – and any advice very gratefully received!

The imbalanced keto diet may well also have been low in certain micronutrients (minerals/ vitamins/ essential fatty acids/ antioxidants). Now focusing on calories and macronutrients (carbs/ fat/ protein) may not be correcting that.

Have you read Dr Mosley’s ‘Clever Guts Diet’ book? Are you keeping a detailed food, activity and symptom diary? What types of fibre-rich foods are you eating now? The most satiating (seeds/ beans/ lentils/ pot barley) are rich in soluble fibre and minerals.

Hey,
It sounds like you have a really complex case. All I can say though is that I find full fat yoghurt is super filling and would help your gut biome.
Massive well done for getting through 6 weeks, as someone with three young ones I know how hard it can be to stick to this way of eating through tiredness xx

Many thanks for your replies and support Firefox and sugar sarah, I really appreciate it! I eat a wide variety of vegies and am on a tailored vitamin/mineral supplement specifically prescribed by my GP, but I will think about possible deficiencies. Lack of sleep does make things harder. I mostly mentioned the gut biome issues because it seems that a lot of the advice for dealing with hunger or slow weight loss is to cut the carbs further, but that wont work for me. I guess I just find it hard to believe that a lot of people out there just don’t get hungry on the 800 cal a day once they’ve adjusted, so am wondering if I’m doing something wrong….

Hi, you mentioned in your initial post that you were taking a carb free electrolyte drink. – Is this a drink with artificial sweeteners? – With a keto diet artificial sweeteners are allowed. – However, while they don’t have any carbs they do raise insulin levels. – Our bodies are so sensitive to the level of sugar in the blood stream, that they are designed to prevent high sugar by responding with higher insulin levels to the taste of anything sweet.
This means that if you are having any drinks with artificial sweeteners in them your insulin levels may be too high to allow your body to access your fat stores, which would explain your hunger.
You don’t need to spend money on fancy electrolytes drinks, just take a pinch of salt and allow it to melt on your tongue occasionally during the day.

Thanks for your advice JGwen, I appreciate it. I’m hardly taking the electrolyte drink anymore, but I do have a spoonful of stevia in my cuppa each morning and the occasional glass of cranberry drink sweetened with stevia. I will try giving those up (sob) and see if that helps. I am curious though, if I haven’t been accessing my fat stores, where has the 6 kg that I’ve lost come from….hopefully not muscle!!

Hi, the “good news” is that our bodies have to hold on to water to process carbs. So the rapid weight loss at the start will be water. (The body is 70% plus water). The bad news is, yes, some of the weight loss will be muscle and other tissues if your insulin levels are not low enough to allow your body to access fat as a fuel source.

Very often people are excessively hopeful that all weight loss is fat. – There are 3500 calories in a lb of fat. Which makes 7700 calories in a kg of fat. –

I thought I’d provide an update for anyone interested or facing similar problems. I tried dropping all stevia-sweetened products (a teaspoon in my daily cup of tea, occasional stevia sweetened cranberry drink). It did help a little with the hunger pangs, which makes me think they do affect my insulin levels. I’m back having a little stevia as an occasionaly treat, but trying to be more mindful of it.

Interestingly though, my blood ketone monitor shows me to be almost always at least 1-1.5, so mild to moderate ketosis. So I can be in ketosis (fat burning mode) and still be hungry. My blood glucose readings are often fairly low – in the low to mid 4s if I haven’t eaten for a while, so I’m wondering if that has something to do with the hunger? (I’m not diabetic)

I have lost 7.5 kg all up, and I am pretty sure from changes in my body shape that a lot of that has been fat. I have clearly gone down two pant sizes and lost 5cm from my waist. My physio says that provided I am eating adequate protein and doing moderate exercise at least 3 times a week, I shouldn’t be losing muscle mass.

My take out from this is that unfortunately I’m just not one of those people that can do this diet without ongoing hunger. It doesn’t mean it’s not working, and I’m very pleased and proud of my success and see the benefits for my health, so I will keep going for now!

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Bringing together the latest research into the Mediterranean-style diet, intermittent fasting and high intensity exercise, Dr Michael Mosley has integrated The Blood Sugar Diet into his comprehensive lifestyle plan, The Fast 800. Join The Fast 800 email community for science-based healthy living news, recipes and exclusive community offers delivered straight to your inbox.